The low daylight clad Their forms with awful fairness, beauty now Of life, so warm and ripe and glorious, yet So near the beauty terrible of Death.
Lars, the victor, has all the ill-luck. His foe falls lifeless, his sweetheart calls him a murderer, and he flies from the law. Another scene quickly shows him crossing the broad ocean, as so many Norwegians and Swedes had crossed before him, and seeking the protection of Swedish forts on Delaware banks. Long, sad days pass on the ocean,
Till shining fisher-sails Came, stars of land that rose before the land;
and soon he leaps to shore in New Sweden, only to find that the civilization he seeks has set like a sinking planet into the abiding enlightenment of another race and creed. Governor Printz's fortress on Tinicum isle is a ruin of yellow bricks: the wanderer strays up the broad stream
To where, upon her hill, fair Wilmington Looks to the river over marshy weeds. He saw the low brick church with stunted tower, The portal-arches, ivied now and old, And passed the gate: lo! there the ancient stones Bore Norland names and dear familiar words! It seemed the dead a comfort spake.
The governor is a myth, the Swedes are dead, the Scandinavian tongues have been changed to English, and an English exactly conformed to King James's translation of the Scriptures. The first girl he speaks to checks him for addressing her with a civility:
"Nay," she said, "not _lady_! call me Ruth."
With the father of this primitive Nausicaa, on Hockessin Farm, the wanderer abides as herdsman. Soon, under the propaganda of Ruth's soft eyes and the drowsy spell of the Delawarean society, he joins the peaceful sect amongst which he labors. It is easier, though, to change his plural pronouns to the scriptural _thou_ and _thee_ of King James's translators than to tame his heroic Viking blood, swift to boil into wrath at the show of oppression. Such an outburst leads to a quaint scene of acknowledgment and repentance, where lies
Up beyond the woods, at crossing-roads, The heart of all, the ancient meeting-house.
Lars, prayed over by the brethren, bursts forth in tears and supplications among the worshipers, and is received into full harmony with them:
So into joy revolved the doubtful year, And, ere it closed, the gentle fold of Friends Sheltered another member, even Lars.... And all the country-side assembled there One winter Sabbath, when in snow and sky The colors of transfiguration shone, Within the meeting-house. There Ruth and Lars Together sat upon the women's side; And when the peace was perfect, they arose: He took her by the hand, and spake these words, As ordered: "In the presence of the Lord And this assembly, by the hand I take Ruth Mendenhall, and promise unto her, Divine assistance blessing me, to be A loving and a faithful husband, even Till death shall separate us." Then spake Ruth The like sweet words; and so the twain were one.